Real Cops Don't Like Their Tv Counterparts

July 2, 1986|By David Friedman, KNT News Service

There ought to be a law against cop shows.

So say respondents from 21,000 police departments in the United States polled by the National Association of Chiefs of Police. Nearly two-thirds of those officers believe that TV depicts law-enforcement workers in an inaccurate and unflattering light -- distortions that, from their point of view, make their already difficult jobs even tougher. Whether they've heard of Marshall McLuhan or not, today's media-savvy cops know the medium really is the message. The problem, they say, is that the message stinks.

''The show's a joke,'' said Gerald S. Arenberg, executive director of the Miami-based National Association of Chiefs of Police. ''No real vice cops chase drug dealers in a Ferrari while wearing $600 suits. More often than not, they're holed up in a crummy room somewhere, wearing jeans with holes in them, watching some beat-up warehouse in a godforsaken part of town through a pair of dented binoculars.''

Actually, the false glitz and glamor of Miami Vice are only the least of its faults. The show ''trivializes the work of real undercover police officers,'' said Dr. Walter Gorski, a police psychologist for Arenberg's organization, who notes that going undercover -- becoming temporarily schizophrenic, if you will -- is extremely demanding duty. ''Even in a wide- open town like Miami,'' said Gorski, ''any undercover officers acting like Crockett Don Johnson and Tubbs Philip Michael Thomas would be found out in a week. The show is an insult to the men who really do those hazardous jobs.''